Scratch-cooking skills gap: a director and a cook train together in a national cohort
Walla Walla Public Schools is one of 25 districts in the Chef Ann Foundation's first Starting From Scratch cohort, spanning 17 states and 271,000+ students. Nutrition Services Director Kara Carlson and Sharpstein Elementary cook Andrea Goff will attend a four-day intensive in Boulder, Colorado. The training covers scaling scratch recipes while managing food and labor costs, procurement, staffing, kitchen capacity and student acceptance. The district will then build a scratch-cooking roadmap and get a year of mentoring. Its schools now offer scratch-cooked options two to three days a week.
Why it matters for directors: Sending a frontline cook with the director builds buy-in where the recipes actually get made. Any district can borrow the roadmap's five areas: food, finance, facilities, HR and marketing.
Original source: Elkhorn Media Group ↗